Elements of Retrofit Read Online Free Page B

gay. I knew I had to do it before college. I knew I had to be out before I went to college, or I’d spend the next four years in the closet.”
    He was gay. He was telling me he was gay after discussing my divorce, which meant he knew why I got divorced.
    I shook my head, really not sure what to say. “Yeah.” I snorted in disbelief. “God forbid you end up living a lie until your fortieth birthday.”
    I didn’t mean for it to sound so biting, but I didn’t apologise.
    He looked straight at me. I was half expecting him to say sorry for bringing it up, for even discussing my personal life with me, but of course he didn’t. “Is that what happened for you?” he asked me outright. “Did you get to forty and think—”
    “I can’t live a lie anymore,” I finished for him.
    He nodded. And then he did the darnedest thing. He put his hand on mine. “You’re not living a lie anymore.”
    “No,” I whispered. “I guess not.”
    He pulled back his hand then he brightened considerably. “So? Seeing anyone?”
    I shook my head and laughed at the incredulity of the conversation. “No.”
    Then he stood up off the stool, leaning in close to me as he did. “That’s a shame,” he said. He was close enough for me to feel the warmth of his skin, to smell his aftershave.
    Fuck.
    Still leaning in close to me, he slowly took my plate then turned to walk around the counter and put the plates in the sink.
    Apparently he spoke, but my head was still spinning at what had just happened, I didn’t hear him ask me anything. He waved his hand in front of my face to get my attention. “You okay?”
    “Yeah,” I replied, though the smug bastard smiled at me.
    “I asked you how your coffee machine worked,” he said.
    I stood up, walked around the counter and took the coffee from him, giving him a glare as I did. It didn’t help that he smiled.
    If it were Ryan speaking to me like that, I’d chip him for disrespecting me. Yet, I found it sassy in Cooper. The way his eyes danced, the way his lips twisted in that playful smirk.
    The strong smell of coffee seemed to clear my senses a little, sobering me, as I filled the machine, but when I turned to face Cooper again, he wasn’t next to me. He was back at the dining table. And he was back to being all business.
    I put his coffee in front of him, answering his questions and discussing the insulation properties of different types of glazing and New York’s planning requirements for retrofits. He was inquisitive and had a thirst for learning everything he could, and the way he just switched from flirting to professional left me wondering if I’d imagined the flirting side of it.
    I mean, why would he flirt with me? Not only was I twice his age, and the father of a friend of his, but it could be career-ending.
    Well, not for me. I might get a slap on the wrist, but his career would be over before it even began.
    Why would he flirt with me? Who the hell was I kidding? What the hell was I thinking? I could have kicked myself for even considering the idea. First the dream, then the fantasising about it. Now this?
    I needed to go out and hook up. Find some one-night stand and fuck him senseless. Or be fucked senseless. I needed to lose myself, for just one night.
    The fact that I’d fantasised about Cooper, about having him underneath me, should have been enough warning. It had been too long since I’d had sex. I was only interested in him, I told myself convincingly, because I’d gone too long without fulfilling sex.
    I needed to go out. I needed to get laid. Then there’d be no more of this irresponsible infatuation with a twenty-two-year-old.
    “Plans for tonight?” Cooper’s voice startled me.
    “Um, yeah,” I told him. “I have plans.” Only very new, not-thought-through plans, I thought to myself. But plans nonetheless.
    “Where are you off to?”
    “Just catching up with an old friend,” I told him, when the truth was I had no clue.
    “I’m supposed to be going